Actor: Mikhail Nazvanov

Ivan the Terrible, Part II: The Boyars' Plot

This is the second part of a projected three-part epic biopic of Russian Czar Ivan Grozny, undertaken by Soviet film-maker Sergei Eisenstein at the behest of Josef Stalin. Production of the epic was stopped before the third part could be filmed, due to producer dissatisfaction with Eisenstein's introducing forbidden experimental filming techniques into the material, more evident in this part than the first part. As it was, this second part was banned from showings until after the deaths of both Eisenstein and Stalin, and a change of attitude by the subsequent heads of the Soviet government. In this part, as Ivan the Terrible attempts to consolidate his power by establishing a personal army, his political rivals, the Russian boyars, plot to assassinate him.

Ivan the Terrible, Part I

Set during the early part of his reign, Ivan faces betrayal from the aristocracy and even his closest friends as he seeks to unite the Russian people. Sergei Eisenstein's final film, this is the first part of a three-part biopic of Tsar Ivan IV of Russia, which was never completed due to the producer's dissatisfaction with Eisenstein's attempts to use forbidden experimental filming techniques and excessive cost overruns. The second part was completed but not released for a decade after Eisenstein's death and a change of heart in the USSR government toward his work; the third part was only in its earliest stage of filming when shooting was stopped altogether.

Hamlet

Shakespeare's 17th century masterpiece about the "Melancholy Dane" was given one of its best screen treatments by Soviet director Grigori Kozintsev. Kozintsev's Elsinore was a real castle in Estonia, utilized metaphorically as the "stone prison" of the mind wherein Hamlet must confine himself in order to avenge his father's death. Hamlet himself is portrayed (by Innokenti Smoktunovsky) as the sole sensitive intellectual in a world made up of debauchers and revellers. Several of Kozintsev directorial choices seem deliberately calculated to inflame the purists: Hamlet's delivers his "To be or not to be" soliloquy with his back to the camera, allowing the audience to fill in its own interpretations.

The Tale of the Dead Princess and the Seven Knights

Animated film based on the story of Alexander Pushkin. The new king's wife wants to get rid of their stepdaughter and expels it to certain death in the forest. Princess finds refuge in the forest in the seven bogatyrs. The queen, finds out about it and poisons her...

Attack from the Sea

The historical and biographic movie about the glorified Russian naval commander Ushakov. France begins aggressive wars. The Russian and allied troops freeing Italy are headed by A. V. Suvorov. The victory in the fortress of Corfu is ensured by operation of the admiral Ushakov.

Flower on the Stone

Set in a new mining town in the Donets Coal Basin, it centres on a clash between the young miners, the political establishment, and a religious cult lead by a devious Pentecostal evangelist infiltrated into the community who tries to make the workers fall under his influence.

Meeting on the Elbe

Soviet and American soldiers are meeting on the shores of the Elbe river in Germany in 1945.